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Afghanistan earthquake response – UN Women 19 September 2025
Afghanistan quake leaves women and girls facing 'long-term disaster', warns UN
Women and girls still reeling from Afghanistan's recent deadly earthquake face even greater suffering rebuilding their lives and livelihoods without much more help from the international community, UN Women said on Friday.
“While the major aftershocks have passed, or have mostly passed, women in affected areas are facing a long-term disaster without more urgent assistance,” said Susan Ferguson, UN Women Special Representative in Afghanistan.
One woman rescuer supported by the UN agency described “scrambling” along the sides of mountains, “dodging falling rocks every time there was an aftershock”, Ms. Ferguson told journalists in Geneva. “Another woman who joined these teams, again with our support, said there was no other channel for women to share their needs and concerns, as they are restricted from speaking to men.”
In the more than two weeks since a shallow 6.0 magnitude earthquake hit eastern Afghanistan, rescuers have battled extremely challenging terrain – often on foot – to reach the most remote communities in Kunar province. At least 2,200 people were killed as houses built on steep hillsides collapsed on top of each other when the quake happened at around midnight on 31 August.
After meeting women survivors living in a basic tent in Chawkay district in central Kunar province, Ms. Ferguson said it was clear that they would soon need sturdier shelter, as temperatures start to drop.
“These women had fled their village in the middle of the night when the earthquake struck, walking for hours to find temporary shelter,” she said. “They told me they'd lost their relatives, many still buried in the rubble. They lost their homes, they lost their livelihoods and their source of income. As one woman said to me, ‘Now we have nothing.’’’
The humanitarian response to the disaster has been hampered by the de facto authority (DFA)’s ban on Afghan women staff members and contractors from entering UN compounds in the capital, Kabul, effective since 5 September.
“The ban is impacting us because our women staff are not allowed to come to the office to work,” the UN Women representative said. “However, women staff and women in the humanitarian response are still able to operate in the earthquake-affected sites. And this is really essential and has been recognized actually as essential by the DFA…as well.”
Women and girls accounted for more than half of those killed and injured in the disaster. They also make up 60 per cent of those still missing, while many survivors live in tents or out in the open, as witnessed by UN Women assessment teams.
Providing health care to survivors of the tragedy remains a priority – as does finding enough women to do this work, in line with culturally accepted practices. “What I heard from health workers and from some women was that there was a particular area in the earthquake-affected zone where there were cultural norms that meant that women themselves didn't want men to touch them and that men also didn't want to touch women as they were trying to rescue them,” Ms. Ferguson explained.
Destruction of basic infrastructure has heightened the threat of violence against women and girls as they are forced to walk further in search of a bathroom, or gather water, exposing them to the risk of violence and landmines.
“In everyday life, in this cultural context, these women already face an uphill battle every day to survive and support their families,” Ms. Ferguson said. “Now, in the disruption and chaos following the earthquake, these women will find it exponentially harder to feed their children and find a safe place to stay.”
Satellite images have revealed that more than 649,000 tonnes of debris - equivalent to 40,500 truckloads – still need to be cleared. According to the UN Development Programme (UNDP) which analysed the data at least 23,000 people may have been forced from their homes.
ends
STORY: Afghanistan earthquake response – UN Women
TRT: 2’32”
SOURCE: UNTV CH
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH/ NATS
ASPECT RATIO: 16:9
DATELINE: 19 SEPTEMBER 2025 GENEVA, SWITZERLAND & broll of Susan Ferguson, UN Women Special Representative in Afghanistan visiting an affected village and surrounding area in Chawkay district, central Kunar province, on 11 September 2025.
Speaker:
- UN Women Special Representative in Afghanistan, Susan Ferguson
SHOTLIST
- Exterior wide shot: Palais des Nations, flag alley.
- Wide, podium speakers, UN Geneva Press room, remote speaker on TV screens.
- SOUNDBITE (English) – UN Women Special Representative in Afghanistan, Susan Ferguson: “Women and girls continue to bear the brunt of the Afghanistan earthquake, one of the deadliest in the country’s recent history. While the major aftershocks have passed, or have mostly passed, women in affected areas are facing a long-term disaster without more urgent assistance.”
- Wide, podium speaker, journalists, remote speaker on TV screen.
- SOUNDBITE (English) – UN Women Special Representative in Afghanistan, Susan Ferguson: “One of the women we supported on these teams described scrambling along the sides of mountains, dodging falling rocks every time there was an aftershock. Another woman who joined these teams, again with our support, said there was no other channel for women to share their needs and concerns, as they are restricted from speaking to men.”
- Medium, journalist.
- SOUNDBITE (English) – UN Women Special Representative in Afghanistan, Susan Ferguson: “I sat with a group of women in an earthquake-affected village. We met in a stiflingly hot tent with a dirt floor and soon that ground will freeze as winter approaches. These women had fled their village in the middle of the night when the earthquake struck, walking for hours to find temporary shelter.”
- Wide, TV journalist, TV screens showing remote speaker.
- SOUNDBITE (English) – UN Women Special Representative in Afghanistan, Susan Ferguson: “They told me they'd lost their relatives, many still buried in the rubble. They lost their homes, they lost their livelihoods and their source of income. As one woman said to me, ‘Now we have nothing.’ Yet as long as there are women humanitarians on the ground, there is hope that women like this woman will be able to access support and services.”
- Medium-wide, journalists.
- SOUNDBITE (English) – UN Women Special Representative in Afghanistan, Susan Ferguson: “The ban is impacting us because our women staff are not allowed to come to the office to work. However, women staff and women in the humanitarian response are still able to operate in the earthquake-affected sites. And this is really essential and has been recognized actually as essential by the DFA authorities as well.”
- Wide, journalists, TV screens showing remote speaker.
- SOUNDBITE (English) – UN Women Special Representative in Afghanistan, Susan Ferguson: “What I heard from health workers and from some women was that there was a particular area in the earthquake-affected zone where there were cultural norms that meant that women themselves didn't want men to touch them and that men also didn't want to touch women as they were trying to rescue them.”
- Medium, TV journalist.
For B-roll Shotlist see More Info
UN WOMEN B-roll: Afghanistan earthquake - 11 September 2025
- 00:00 - 00:23 - Medium shot, view from a moving car driving on dirt road with UN inscription visible on car
- 00:24 - 00:37 - Wide shot, view of tents
- 00:37 - 00:43 - Medium shot, Woman seen walking from the back with UN Women logo on her jacket
- 00:44 - 02:15 - Various shots, destroyed houses
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New data showing that rivers were at their lowest level for decades last year provides further evidence that the climate crisis is real and countries must act immediately to protect themselves from the increasing threat to communities and livelihoods, the UN World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said on Thursday.
The key findings from WMO’s State of Global Water Resources 2025 report covering the hydrological cycle and extreme events in the five-year period to last year:
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- Water storage on Earth’s land surface has decreased in past decade
- Widespread glacier loss across all regions for fourth consecutive year
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- Water data availability has improved, but gaps remain in hard-hit areas
Highlighting the long-term decline in the Earth’s freshwater storage and glacier melt, WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo explained that the planet’s water reserves used to act as a planetary “savings account” that absorbed the occasional dry season, avoiding a water crisis. “One of the central stories of the 2025 report is what is happening to that savings account? And the simple answer is that we are depleting it,” she told journalists in Geneva.
Groundwater reserves are equally stretched and have been in decline since 2014, WMO’s report states, with nearly two-thirds of monitored wells worldwide showing levels lower than the historical norm and indicating a shift “further toward deficit…not recovery”.
“At the same time, we are seeing more water-related disasters,” Ms. Saulo said, while also stressing that the currently strengthening El Niño “will increase the risk of drought in some areas, and flooding in others”.
Glaciers disappearing
In 2025, for the fourth consecutive year, every major glaciated region on Earth lost ice mass, leading to short-term hazards including floods and long-term water insecurity, according to WMO.
Responding to a question about whether the changing global water cycle might have contributed to the deadly Nepal-China flooding disaster, Ms. Saulo explained that melting ice and rock was just one factor in the chain of events that ultimately sent a massive and deadly wall of water and debris downstream on 26 August, killing at least 1,367 people.
“You asked if it could happen again? Absolutely; the problem in this region is that there’s 63,700 glaciers at the last count,” she told a Press Conference in Geneva. “Even if you’re looking with remote sensing with satellites at these glaciers, you might see some faults, you might see some slight shifting, that does not mean necessarily catastrophic collapse. So, in order to plan for this, it’s very, very difficult. But the international community is looking very hard at ways in which we can bring people together to solve some of these monitoring issues.”
Data indicates that glaciers shrank between 2023 and 2025 with cumulative losses of 1,400 gigatonnes of water – or about one third of annual fresh water needs.
Every major glacier region on Earth lost ice for the fourth consecutive year.
“All 19 glacier regions around the globe lost ice; in Central Asia, Iceland, the Russian Arctic and western Canada and the United States, it was among the three worst years on record,” said Wayne Jenkinson, WMO’s Director of Hydrology and Cryosphere.
Some regions with smaller glaciers such as Central Europe, the Caucasus, the western Canada and the United States may already have reached “peak water”, Mr. Jenkinson warned.
“After this point, the glacier gives less meltwater each year simply because there is less ice left to melt. That matters for every community downstream that relies on water during hot, dry summers,” he explained.
Narelle van der Wel, WMO’s Head of Cryosphere Monitoring, Predictions and Services, stressed that while some further glacier loss is unavoidable, the eventual scale of the decline is not predetermined.
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Preparing for moving baselines
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Mr. Jenkinson said governments need to prepare for “moving baselines” as historical patterns become less reliable.
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ends